Monday, September 10, 2007

The Ultimate Ball Breaker

Well, I was fortunate enough to witness in person Oregon's incredible victory at the Big House over the weekend. It was a lot of fun and well worth having to fly with Northworst Airlines. If you learn one thing from me it should be, Never fly Northworst Airlines! No radio, no televisions, no free snacks, no (insert whatever you would like to have to pass the time on a 4+ hour flight). With all of that being said the one thing I will remember the most from my trip was the characters I was with. In order to protect the identities of the individuals involved in this story I will use generic names, John and Matt. Here goes the story.

The Ducks finished pummeling the Wolverines and we headed back to our hotel after eating at a Mexican restaurant. (The cheese in the quesadilla and the churros were phenomenal.) We arrived at the hotel around 9:30pm and decided to watch some of the LSU vs. Virginia Tech game in the lobby. It was at this time that John decided he was going to head back to Ann Arbor to hang out with a childhood friend. Matt and I wished him well and went up to our respective rooms to watch college football. Honestly, I can't think of anything more fun to celebrate Oregon's biggest road win in a long time than to watch more football! At around 11:00 pm I decided it was time to go to sleep because Matt and I needed to wake up at 9:00 to catch a flight. I do realize 10 hours of sleep after a huge win qualifies me for senior citizen status but I need to have my full allotment of sleep in order to fly. Ironically enough, the guy that went out to party, John, had to wake up at 6:00am or so to catch an earlier flight. Being the college beer pong champion that he is that minor detail had no bearing on when he was going to go to sleep.

I wake up the next morning and made my way down to the lobby at 10:00am to meet up with Matt. I figured out the directions to the rental car drop off and waited for Matt to show. Of course, it's 10 and he is nowhere to be seen so I call him. (Hopefully you have made it to this part of the story because this is where it gets good.)

Matt - "Will they let me fly if I don't have my driver's license?"Me - "Why don't you have your driver's license?"Matt - "Well, I think John took my pants with him when he left this morning."Me - "Are you sure John took your pants and how did you not know that he took your pants?"Matt - "I have searched the whole room and can't find them. I left them on my bag when I went to sleep."Me - "Do you have any pants that you can wear to the airport or are those your only ones?"Matt - "I do have other pants."Me - "Good, get down to the lobby and we'll figure something out at the airport."

As I waited for Matt in the lobby I was completely dumbfounded. Luckily, it had been established that John did not take the pants off of Matt while he was sleeping. But how could John take Matt's pants that were lying on his bag? When Matt came down he was able to enlighten me.

Apparently John got back to the room around 4:30am and may or may not have been hammered. I'll let you decide. Upon entering the room John began throwing pillows at Matt. John was under the impression Matt was sleeping but he wasn't because John's noisy entrance moments earlier had awoken him. After throwing pillows at Matt, John began to laugh hysterically and decided that was the time to take some photographs of Matt lying in bed with all of the pillows. It was about this time I was beginning to wonder if in fact John took the pants that were on Matt's person given how thrilled he was to turn Matt into a model. Matt assured me that was not the case. At around 6:00am John received a phone call from his ride to the airport wondering where he was. Of course John had slept through his alarm. As an aside, can you sleep through an alarm that you never set because you are too (insert appropriate words for an individual that throws pillows at and takes pictures of other men in bed)? I'll let you ponder that question on your own.

After receiving the wake-up call John proceeded to do what he does best: get angry, lose his temper and use four-letter words. It should come as no surprise that not only did John not wake up but he also needed to pack. At this point, John proceeded to repeatedly use every four-letter word imaginable while throwing whatever he could find in the dark room into his bag. John zipped up his bag and bolted out the door. It was when Matt woke up and started to pack his own bag that he discovered that John left a polo shirt, cell phone charger and who knows what else. However, Matt could not find the pants he wore the day before that had his wallet and keys. Given John's struggle to leave the room hours before, Matt assumed/hoped John had his pants. Matt did wonder though if in his haste to leave John had thrown the pants across the room and the keys and wallet had fallen out and scattered to the far corners of the room. We could not verify the location of Matt's pants because John was already in the air but we had to get to the airport.

When arriving at the airport Matt had to receive a special boarding pass that gave him the right to be manhandled by a security guard. When Matt showed his boarding pass at the security checkpoint he was immediately taken to his own little corner of the room. The entire airport was able to watch as Matt's bag was turned inside out and Matt's body was vigorously patted. As I waited for Matt I sent John a text simply saying, "No one has broken someone's balls more than you. the whole aiport just watched matt get cavity searched." The thought of someone being so drunk (or tired if you were to ask John) that he packs clothes placed on someone else's bag, leaves some of his own things and takes the wallet of someone that could use it to get through security got me through the Northworst flight. After initially claiming that he should not be blamed for taking Matt's pants, John finally fessed up to being a moron and making the trip to Michigan all that much better.